morphogenesis of the agrarian cultural landscape: papers of the vadstena symposium at the xixth...

Swedish Villages without Systematic RegulationAuthor(s): Sigurd ErixonSource: Geografiska Annaler, Vol. 43, No. 1/2, Morphogenesis of the Agrarian CulturalLandscape: Papers of the Vadstena Symposium at the XIXth International GeographicalCongress (1961), pp. 57-74Published by: Wiley on behalf of Swedish Society for Anthropology and GeographyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/520232 .

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In Sweden, villatges in the o1d traditional Isense have for the most part vanished. This is the result of strictly carried out State reforms of the settleanent and owinership structure. When we Swedes wish to follow the village system historically we find ourselves from tlhe outset in a worse position than the scholars in many other European countries, where, as often as not village settlement has nlot been essentially changed. Nonetheless, we Swedes believe ;that we have our own contribution to make to European village research.The grounds for this belief are firstly that our medieval laws lay down detailed regulations, and secolnldly, the existence olf an old and valuable map materlial beginning as early as the 1630's. In this respect Sweden is probably one of the most richly d,owered countries in Europe.

Another fact that may be of international interest is that our old villages-- above all in Norrland, but partly also in Vatstergotland and Smaland-have been in the hands of free peasants. The more directly transforming influence of a feudal regime is thus here not a predominant factor to be reckoned with.

As I have mentionedthe medieval provincial laws constitute ffie main source of our knowledge of important aspects of the layout of the Swedish villages in older times. The clearest information tis Igiven in the provincial laws in the central East Swedish provinces (Ostergotland, Sodermanland, Uppland, Vast- manland, Dalecarlia and Halsingland), mrhiCh have been preserved in hand-written records to begin with the latter part of the 13th century. These contain detailed regulations for a systematic rearrangement of the so-called solar

l This is a report of: >>Svenska byar utan systematisk reglering. En jamforande historisk undersokning>>, by Sigurd Erixon. Stockholm, Nordiska Museet, 1960, I and II (Maps).

partition ("solskiftet"), through which the settled area with the house-sites had to be replanned to constitute a proportionate scale and standard of grouping for the division af property in field and meadow. The term solar partition, which occurs in certain laws, was connected with the circumstance that the sequence was based upan the locality of the site in relation to the SUI1 or, as ane might now express it, to orielntation according to the four cardinal points. Although these regulations were afterwards, in the 14th and l5th ce.nturies, introduced also in the general provincial laws, the solar partition was not, despite its applicability in principle to the entire king- dom, adepted in the more peripheral settlements. Both the Vastgota and Gotland laws lack regulations concerning solar partition. Outside of the more celntral dgstricts of the realm the solar partition is thus observed in ffie maps of more recent times or out in the outlyingdistricts,only in certain tendencies and partial groupings. It was least realized in old Swedish ,districts in the western provinces, as in Dalecarlia Varmland Vastergotland and western S¢malanld, and in those provinces which were not united with the Swedish crown until the middle of the 17th century. Thus, for example, Jamtland HarJedalen d Bohuslan. Halland anld Bleki!nge are fountd at least to a great extent to have followed the same prln- ciples as in Skane, which d,uring the Middle Ages followed a Danish pattern. The Scanian law, the olde,st hand-written specimen of mrhiCh dates from the end of the 12th century does not mention solar partition, but it does reifer, on the other hand, to another system of Danish origin, the so-called bol-partition. This is considered to be a rearrangement of farms and lands through which the farms were brought together in value-xbnits of equal magnitude, 60-

57 G E O G R A F I S K A A N N A L E R * X L I I I <1 9 6 1 ) * 1,2

SWEDISH VILLAGES WIT1IOUT SYSTEMATIC REGULATION

By SIGURD ERIXON

University, Stockholm



SIGURD ER IXON

called bols, within whose frame the particular farm properties were divided iato plots between which the principle of sequence of the solar partition often seeins to have been applied. Between the bols, which disposed of lots of equal size in all sucalled sections or cases in whi cultivated soil was divided for natural or historical reasons, the location was free of the constraints of solar partition. This co¢n- bination of bol and solar partition thus implied very radical adjustments, but here, t<}o, the system is often found to have been incon- sistently applied in practice.

The regulations in the Vastgota and Gotland laws are with respect to the property-structure of the villages more obscure, even i£ in£orma- tive in certain other details. Other provinces lack such provincial regulatioins.

In large parts of the country, especially outside of the central provinces, these regular parcellations were never carried out otherwise than partially or one-sidedly. It is inter- esting to follow in detail bhe comproses which arese in this way alnd the special local forms which grew out of these.

In the latter part of the Middle Ages but above all after the introduction of Gustav Vasa's public land registers and cesus lists in the 1530's, one begins to have access to con- sistently recorded data regarding tlle grouping of settlements, i. e. the Ilumber of fanns clustered together. These show great variety, with as well single farTns as twin farms, free farm groups and different sizes of villages.

By a village we here ullderstand a group of 3 or more farms situated so close to one another that their tilled areas or homefields are con- tiguous, and often mixed as regards positions and this independently of the nature of the land-owing rights. The number of farms varies.

With this fiscal book-keeping the different properties were fixed and assessed for taxatioll without any distinguishing of the oldSestablished farms from the younger or sdaughter-farms'; but this was on the ssumption that t31e new farms should correspond in point of size to what was required for normal taxation according to the simple criteria of that period. These public land-rwsters and the taking of the census were later improved, so that it began to be possible to distinguish old-established farms from daughter-farmsS i. e. ffie main censu6 units from the existing allotmejnts. One then

58

finds how even villages with a relatively large nlumber of neighbours might sometimes be developed fran an isolated or single farnz. IEe sources show that in the latter part of the 17th century 2 or more flies on one farm, or even on only half an assessed farm, was very common. It must be borne in mind that there was a whole series of transitional forms between single and twin farms.

In Sweden the villages have as a rule been small. The isolated farms undoubtedly emerge as the predominant for,m of settlement in the sparsely settled tracbs, above all as regards the more peripheral regio!ns. In this respect, however, a reservation must be made oncerning northern Dalecarlia, Harjedalen and also Jt- land, where a richly developed settlement evi- fldently already existed during the Middle Ages.

The oldest village maps were prepared in 163s50 by the LandSurveyOffice established ill 1628. This office sent out a number of land- surareyors who ifn the course of less than half a life-time and with remarkable zeal and pre- cisionmapped considerable parts of the fnost essential territories in the country, frogn worthern Smaland and up to Bergslages, southern Dalecarlia and the most ijmportant plains tracts of Norrland in the coastal dxstricts up to the Torne river, with a deviatioa towards tlhe west into eastern Jantland and large parts of Finland. Further west, western Gotaland an!d Varmland were treated These maps now form the basis for all realistic settlement research in this country and they have very few equivalents in the rest of Burope. Unfortunately, above all the 'solar partition" areas were mapped during this period, and the surveyors only rarely charted the division olf plots,with the necessary markings axld accounts concerning the owners. The land-survey maps of this early peri{}d in Vastergotland, in sotne llorthern hundreds ill Smaland and in southern Varmland and the parishes of southern Dale- carlia and northern EIalsingland, as well as in the north of No-rrbcetten seetn most useful for research, as the surveyors here also marked in the oweers of every plot. Thus, as a rule, it is also found that they gtve valuable in£orma- tion about the irrear villag, their settle- naent and ownership division.

In the last two decades of the 17th century the mapping of the villages was again intensi- fied, this time mostly in accordance with more

G E O G R A F I S K A A N N A L E R * X L I I I (1 9 6 | ) * 1 -g

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SWEDISEI VILLAGES WITHOUT SYSTEMATIC REGULATION

detaileid rules which in several, but by no means all, respects supplement our knowledge also of the division of ownership. The earlier lZanish and Nlorwe$ian provinces, wlhich were incorporatefid wit!h the country during the peri- ad of continental expansion, were now mapped with great thorouighness. From the poiqlt of view of our invesfigation it is of particular interest tllat now also the maps of central Jamtland, and Hallalld, as well as Skane and Blekinge, wlere elalborated. StudeXnts of our own times no doubt particularly appreciate the fact that e. g. Jamtland was endowed with regular ownership registers. Mapping was then continued, though not systematically, until [tlhe bepning of the so-called "storskiftet, the great agrarian reform" in the middle of the 1 8th century. Among the achievements deserving of mention, from the mapping as well as from the ac- counting points of view, are those referring to the Kronoberg county in the province of Sma- land and certain parts of Vastergotland, as well as of Dalsland, Bohuslan and the island of Got- land. The solar-partitioned areas, among them the province of Kalmar and the island of oland, which were also zealously mapped, can here be left on one side.

The ch;of interest as regards the oldest map material attaches to Vastergotland, since we here fin!d the first medieval expression of regu- latialn pertaining to the villages, which implies the !moveltnents of settlement from a homefield area,, evidently n connection with the creation of a kind af inside partnership without systelmatic regulation of parcels. And secondly, there is an important map material in wnbroken series as from 1640, thanks to which oIle can follow the development in detail in many villages up to the "laga skiftet", that is "the legislated agrarian reform" of 1827.

Next after Vastergotlaned the material from certairl parts of southern Dalecarlia and western Smaland may be adlduceld iql this con,nection.

As early as the second gdecade of the 20th century, wheln investigations were started, it was found that only few communities of this kind had not been touched by ffie legislated partition carried out by Ithe land-surveying authorities from 1827 onwards. It ,goes without saying that their number was even less significant during the l950's, when my field- investigations for ffiis book were nearing their

GEOGRAFISKA ANNALER 4 XLIII (X @61) * 1*2

tnd. It should be added that the still existing remains of villages have by now as a rule become more or less altered in other respects, through the general transformations due to the modern age. "The legislated partition" entailed such profound modifications of the distribution of ownership and of settlement methods that an entirely new situation was createld. The earlier villages, with the houses often close together and the lands more or less mixed up with one another, were replaced by isolated farms with at least the intensely cul.tivated lands gathered around them. The investigations also proved that the older division of lands, dating from the "storskiftet" had as a rule been carried out in the unparcelled villages. This agrarian reform already mentioned, begun as early as about 1750, owing to a series of acts passed by the Riksdag from 1749 to 1783. It constituted an earlier effort towards the concentration of estate on the same lines as the "legislated partition", though not carried through so radically and systematically. It also implied the breaking up of an older divisioln -of the groun!d with its mixed lands and distribution of plots, in the maill dating back to the Middle Ages ,or even older periods. Yet this agrarian reform did not as a rule a£fect the settlement and tlle farm estates tllemselves so much, nor did it lead to any exodus due to overcrowding or Imixing. In the 18th century the reform rapidly covereld most parts of the country, and then continued far into the l9th century in ;those areas wlhich had nlat previously been affected by it, e. Eg. Dale- carlia. Thus comparatively few villages re- nained untouched bly these parcellings, a circumstance which should be seen fro¢n the point of view o!f the country as a whole. The conditions of lagrarian and historical research in the villag during the comparatively short periold between the first and the secd agrarian reforms are of only passing interest, even if they can contrilbute a goiod deal to local history. Thus Ithose who wish tol go farther back in order to enquire into early cownership struc- tures have to rewrt to older maps. Yet even these do not always and immediately offer the clarity desired. A prerequisite;for this would be that division of estate had been indicated and the owners marked in on ¢he maps them- selves, and preferably further commented upon in the descriptiorls accompanying them. Un- fortunately, sit is rather seldom that maps

59

5-10280-$



SIGURD ERIXON

Fig. 1. Herro village in the parish of Sveg, Harjedalen. View over the village from east. Photo Stockholms-Aero 1957. According to admission from Forsvarsstaben.

comply with these demands, a shortcoming particularly characterilstic of the,maps of the first great reform (storskiftet). The latter may oftein ind-icate the Ifigures referring to estate frolm the divisioln belfore the parcelling; but apart frofm this they are unmarked, and the parcelling protlolcols mostly aim o!nly at a report ol:E the situation after the new Idivision- Fortu- rsately, there were some unusually ambitiolus land-surveyors who did satisfy these require- melnts, especially outside the central provinces sz ith their stricter bureaucracy. Strange as it may see!m, Zthe land-surveyors were £ree to chlolose the;ir own melthods of reporting. Before this parcelling, detailed "registers of pos- sessions" of the kind established during the peak-peri,od olf the leZgislated partition in the 1 9tih century can be found only in certain peripheral areas of the country and in the south-west of Swedeln, where, perhapls owing to Danish influence, almore detailed registration of estate seems to have becolme official routine.

As we have already seen in the central parts of eastern Sweden, as well as in the south, centrally directed changeswerecarriedthrough, with as a rule systematic regulations obliter- ating the earlier grouping and dLstribution of lanld. For a study of more original and gelnuine

conditions, one has to turn Ifrom the main territories of the country to more perip.heral provinces and conditions.

Nowadays, it is only in exceptional cases possible to enter more deeply into this map- research on the villag-es themselve,s, ulnless it is folr the purpose of gaining informatisin concerning topagraphical c;onditions or collectin.g general denoimi.natio!ns of plots or studyilng the functions and rules of cooperation and the tech;n.ical conditions which may have had a formative influence. An exception in this, as in many other reVspecbs, .is the province of tIarjedalen, as well as certain villages in southern Jamtland. Harjeldalen w.as up tol the 1 820's stra.ngely neglected frolm the point of view of Imapping and parcelliZng. It was only then that the mappin,g of the villages was started; but the "storskifte" "great parcelling.", of these was not carried through until a kind of coimbination of statutory parcellin.g was ,made in the second half of the l9th century, in certain cases, in fact, not until the begiinning of this century.

Only Harjedalen and southern Jamtland still retain a more or less untouched ownership structure right up to the end of the l9th cen.tury, when parc.elling was carried out also

60 GEOGRAFISKA ANNALER * XLlil (1 961) * 1-R



SWEDISH VILLAGES WITHOUT SYSTEMATIC REGULAIION

:X

WHrf **e *S-X

Fig. 2. Matnaset village in the parish of Myssjos Jamtland. Illustrative reconstruction of the map of 1734. The village comprised 4 farmsteads marked A- D. To these belonged 3 soldier's holdings marked IIB, IIC, and IID and a crofter's holding, marked III. Explanation of signs: house outline = farmstead site; chequered area = arable land; dotted area = meadow, hay-field; ring-marked area= pasture; dotted and cross-marked area= tilled land in grass, lea; tree-marked area= wooded area; line with slanting strokes= fence; bold line-property boundary; dotted and dashed line-property boundary running through hay-field, fine line-boundary between different kinds of land.

Sarna and Idre in Dalecarlia where conditioqls h&ve been the same, have been found the most valuable regions for an historic-ethn.ologic investigation of the villages i,n Sweden. Tt has been a .matter of utilizing the possibility of

in the villages in these parts of the country. I,n some cases we have in th,ese districts maps dati,ng back to the 1820's which were drawn without reference to parcelling. Thus Harje- dalen and southern Jamtland, in part also

61 C E O C R A F I S K A A N N A L E R ' X L I I I 11 9 6 1 ) ' 1 w2



SIGURD ERIXON

interviewing old peasants in these villages, svhase inhabitants experienceld the parcellings and recollect solmethilng olf the conditions obtaining ble!fore these took place.

With a simple formulation one might say: in these districts there existed in some places as late as the l950's, and perhaps still Ido exist, bearers of a traditiolnal knowledge of an ownership structure which in its skeletal form has survived since the Milddle Ages. With their decease or fading memory the veil falls in- exorably, at least as regards personal knowledge of the actual conlditiolns mechanically representled in the maps. I have d these informants to the iextelnt that was feasible with the liXmited re'sources at my disposal and with due allowance for the paucity of genuine and good informants and the dimming of their memories with the passage of the years. It may be mentioned in passing that the material collected i,n these interviews !has nlat been restric- ted to that throwilng light upon tlhe main problems,dealt with in this investigation, but also constitutes matter Iserving for many all- round village analyses. To what extent such analyses will be made on this basis has not yet been decided.

Two factors slhould be berne in mind in this connection. We have here to consider first of all the regions whiclh only aftier the wars of Sweden's era of colntinental expansion or still later were incorporated with Sweden. From the purely Imethodological point of view this implies an advantage, inasmuch as these districts were Iduring the Middle Ages and under the Vasas and in the first part of the era of contiIlental expansion not affected by Swedish legislation with its bureaucratic solar partitio,n. The seclond factor, on the other halnd, implies a weakness from the point of view of a general survey. I am here relferring to regions which only in an inconsiderable degree repre- sent a normal agrarian development. They are situated too high above sea-level and are in general too rugged for this. However, this cannot and must not be regarded as an abnormality. fiAs a matter olf fact, large parts olf the Scan- dinavian peninsula have been obliged until relatively recently to rely mainly upon cattle- rearing. This was presu!mably earlier the case also with many subsequent agrarian settlernents. Generally speaking, in fact, a richly developed agriculture would seem rather to be an extretne

62

condition only possible in the more fertile plains with settlemen,ts, where at a relatively early stag;e it led to a more systematic mixedi participation and parcellation in the proper sense of the term. Let us then accord to both types of occupation the interest to which they are in- trinsically entitled.

A p,oint worth noting is that even n the 1 6th century thes.e for;merly Norwegian .districts show so many IbLg villages that the distribution ci settlements is rather closely re;miniscent of that in the northern part of Dalecarlia. It is here not a.matter of villages that h.ave gr,own up through far,m partition and ilnflux of popu- lation after the conclusion of the Milddle Ages; rather is it a question of a village groupi,ng with relatively Imany farms iin each Iplace evegn during the Middle Ages. I do not undertake to of.fer a detailed explanation of the cause otf this, nor do I here wish to draw the conclu- sions that may follow from it. I must content myself with emphat,sizing that the groupiqsg ,of settlements resembles th.at found in Central Sweden. The village structure, on the other hand, or at leas.t durin,g the late periods now accessible to us, is rather different Ifrom the corres.ponding Swedish Istructure. As a matter of fact, there is much to distinguish it also from that found in Nlorway. This notwi.th- standing, I am nolt yet convilnced that the prevailing Norwegian settlement was originally so one-sidedly concentrated on single farms as often has been asserted.

If we now consider the conditions obtaining in Vanmland, Dalsland and Bohuslan, the ques- tron is equally intrigu-ing. These provinces appear to UIS as i.n thelmain representative for s&ttlement with single o!r isolatebd farms; but this was perhaps not the origillal state of affairs? One can, if one wishes, draw certain co,nclusions from the resemblance iin the coql- centration of settlements as between Harje- dalen, the noriern part of Dalecarlia and Vas- tergotland as well as the provinces of Jon- kopin,g anld Kronoberg. These indications must suffice. It islnot the distribution of settlements as a whole that is the main object of qour investigation. One is, however, forced to draw compar.issons, and one finds oneself repeatedly held up by the contrasts m the pattern cef settlv ment as a whole. Another thing is that research has sometimes failed to analyse the vil- la-ge complexes in such a way as to reveal :the

G E O G R A F 15 K A A N N A L E R * X L I 11 (1 9 6 1 ) ' 1-Z



SWEDISH VILLAGES VVITHOUT SYSTEMATIC REGULATION

village nexuses that have in some cases been obscured. I arn here referring to the rather elastic dilfferences between scattered settlement free fanm groups with some kind of combination, joint villages and other arillages with farm enclosures. Obviously very hilly country with markedly Idiscrete sur£ace conditions mustkbe a decisive factor in forcing the settlers to adopt a system of separate farms. Where there have been possibilities of building together and £orming more or less loose con- glemerations, this appears to be the normal developtnent. The line of demarcation between a joint village and free farm groups is floating.

The enclosures have evideIltly been a main factor in determining the structure of ownership, something which the Harjedal region clearly shows. Enclosures must obviously be of importance where cattle-rearing playls the most important role, anld more especially when agriculture is carrield on at ffie same time. Where a fully developed organlizatioin has not be;en achieved or inherited, it is axiomatic that cattle rearinig plus, agriculture plus neigh5ours Imust give rise to fenci,ng.

One can define as a joint village a ,group of farms consisting of a conglolmeration of a number of specially enclosed farms. Either the farms are collecteld in closed enclaves or in holme4ield groups, or else they are divid,ed among several enclos,ures situated in different places in the village enclosure. The wh,ole forms an irregular conglomerate filling the village enclolsure. The settlement ss normally spread over several farmstead sites. Nowadays one seldom finds any joint villages in original state. In the older map-material the joint villages appear for the smost part as mixe,d groups with at least partial partnerships.

For several reasons I propose to use the Swedish wsord "takt" for an en,closed area for cultivatica or hay, although this term was already lin use in medieval Swedilsh, but often in the more special sense of a staked-out area outside the infields.

In Dalecarlia one may occasionally find in the dialects that the word C4,takt" is used for the whole village enclosure. This was com- maner in HarjeSdalen.

Besides village-C'takt'' we use varian,ts such as whole-"takt" or great-S'takt". In this connection such terms as farm-4'takt'' site-Sctakt'' extra-Sstakt'' meadow-;ctakt'' and so on have

also been coin-ed. The enclosed area is often calleld 'infield area', and also, Ifrelquently, 'garde' (-enclosed village fields as a srhole). For my n part, however, I intend to reserve the word 'giirtle'only for Ithe tilled or cultivated part. The South Swedish counterpart o!f 'garde' is 'va!ng'.

It is fewnd that a transition frn special enclosures to an open-field enclosure has actually taken place in many Swedish settlements, Sas Imay be most clearly seen in Harjedalen.

The village enclosure was(before the great partition used in the big villages in Harjedalen discussed here for cafmmon grazing in ffie autumn; but the individually enclosed Sfarqns did not take part iln this. Instead, they kept their grazing livestock in their own honne- enclosures. A village by-las froim 1779 lays it down that only those whoselenclosures were irlcluded iln a village partnership needed to pay atte'ntion to the grazing regulations.

Des,pite the evidence testifying to the transition frolm joilnt village to village partnership shown in several villages, it is not possible in aIly otf them to illustrate the changes from the beginnin,g alnd to reveal the course of the development so clearly as in Glissjoberg village in the parish of Sveg in Harjedalen. This village was charted without partition in the year 1829. It then had the character of a joint village with many and various enclosures distinguishing the nine farms. All the owned lands were irregll- lar and relatively split up. When one examines the same village in the 1890's, one finds that the inner fences hav-e been pulled upS and a big open enclosure has taken the place o,f the smaller ones. This covered the central main parts of the village enclosures. This is an in- stance of the transformation frolm joint village to the system with open village-enclosure that leaves nothing to be desired in point of clarity. It should be barne in mind that in the mid,dle of the 1 6th ce'n,tury Glissjoberg had at leXa$t five f,armsteads, and that as a village itS too, fthus goes back without doubt to the Mid,dle Ages.

In the joint villages the settlement was generally scattered in several different place,s in the village enclosure. If one compares the location of the sites on the maps with the conditions in the terrain nowadays, one finds that emin- ences had generally been chosen for the location oLf sites. The actual site location is here

G E O G R A F I S K A A N N A L E R * X L I I I 11 9 6 1 ! ' 192 63



SIGURD ERIXON

Fig. 3. View from east over the village Ytterberg in the parish of Sveg, Harjedalen. Photo Stockholms-Aero 1957. According to admission from Forsvarsstaben

referreld to as sitelarea (tomtbacke), but where several sites are assembled in one place or occupy a special section of ;the village we use the te,rm villlage site-area (bybacke).

Movable dung-pens in which the livestock were kept shut up for s,hort periods see!m to have been in use in the whole of Scandinavia. The pens were then s,hifted to aniothetr spot.

Iln certain parbs of Norrlland and Dalecarlia a pen would be set up in front of the cattle- shed. This is ssometimes re,ferred ,to as a "ta", a designati,oln that in the south of Norrlanrd has also bee,n used for,the 'entrance corridor' to the cattle-sheds. Solmetimes, tolo, an outer section olf the village sitetarea haslbeen called a "ta". This has bee,n the case in e. !g. Uppland. The West Sweidish "ta" (Old Sweldish ",ta") is a branch-fonm of the variant "ta". In north- western Uppland, even within living Ime,mory, cattle lanes were called "ta".

It i6 the area inside the homefield enclosures that constituted the private lan,ds. It is plos- sible that at least i,n certain villages this tmigiht

be extentded to refer also to the areas in the immediate.ambionce, i. e. the homefield area, but it is difficult to check up loln this When, however, the holme,field areas were finally sp;oiled on the ;tran,#s.ition to comxnon village enclosures there remained for a long time at least the pro,perty patterns and gro,upings, as well as sometitmes also designatiolns coln,nected with the tenm "tosmt".

In all villages with specially enclosed!farms homefield enclosureas seem to have occ.urreld and playeld a prolmi,nent role. One might with reason call thelm the primary cells d .the farms. In the joint villages. in Harjedalen and Jamtland it was normal for the specially fence.d-iln homefield elnclosures .to be adde.d to with one or a couple of s.ide-enclosures with tille;d field, hay£ield, tilleld land in grass or the like. These are here referred to as accessory enclosures (bit-akt) lor, if not enclosed, accessory or lateral plolts (Is.idoagor). The homefield einclosure and its accessory enclosures or menclosed plots form together what we call

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SWEDISH VILLAGES WITHOUT SYSTEMATIC REGULATION

alhomefield area. This someXmes included the entire infield area of a farm; but it was com- moner in more developed villages for only a part of this area to be- concentrated in this way, while the rest of the infield area of the farm was mixeid with that of other farms within its own enclosures or boundaries. This is what we hclve designated as sSextra-4takt?s orS if unen- closed, extra-4aga"'. In general, the trend of development was from the closed-cell system represented by the enclosed village with its homefield enclosures to assimilated village enclosures with internal partnership and mixed property and parcels and pulled-up fences. As a grouping nor,m, the homefield enclosure and the stress on the infield area represented the braking effect of tradition.

Simple mixed participation is above all noticeable in the periphery of the village, with its small enclosed pastures and 'traar" (fenced pastures), which latter have sofnetimes merged

into tilled fields or hayfields, although they have still retained the name "tra". In the aututnnS and frequently also before the spring sowing, the cattle were allowed to graze in the separate enclotsures. There was no big coqntnon field. There was ofte,n scarcely any regular fallow before the legislated parcellati,on,thou,gh there was rough temporary cultivation shifting from one part of land in grass to another, thus implyin'g a kind of primitive rotation called lind-bruk.

The village enclosure was extended by in- corporating the enclosed pastures on the outskirts (;Straar') with the group of main enclosures. At the same time new pastureland in the environs was fenced in to make small enclosures.

The typical joint village was, as were als,o, as a rule, the contact village, river-bank row- village and often alss} the single fartn, charac- terize,d by the fact that the farmstead site was

t s

_ t + * + * s

' t * + t + u + t * *t * s

We;E,+'++'; ; tim, C tt. ;

X L + '^ s ' >. . . . .'f I 's . + * , X, _2rw ; > , * L r 1 > i Atnar:

Fig. 4. Silje village in parish of Rodon, J$imtland. Illustrative reconstruction of the map of 1693. There were 4 farmsteads by that time, marked A-D. Explanation of signs: chequered area = arable land; dotted area = meadow, hay-field, dotted and cross-marked area= tilled field in grass, lea; dotted and star-marked area-burned thwaite, burn-beaten land; line with slanting strokes-fence.

65 C E O C R A F I S K A A N N A L E R * X L I I I (1 9 6 1 ) * 1-2



SIGURD ERIXON

not fenced off from the homefield enclosure. By homefield enclosure (tomttakt) we are here re,ferring to an enclosed piece of owned grou!nd comprising, besides the farmstead site, some tilled fields not infrequently the best on the farm, sometimes even the biggest a peasant's private special beds or fenced plots, as well as, alongside all this, tilled lalnd and small hayfiel,ds. Thlere are few villages in the above- rnentioned groups without !homefield enclosures. Even where there is no fence around the holmefield enclosures one ofteln distinguishes them as property patterns. These are then designated as owned sites (telmtagor).

The villages Idiscussed here haZd for the most part, at the time when the Nmapping was carried out, irregular tilled fields; but there are also several examples of regular parcellatiorn lin the tilled-fiel-d area.

That the parcelst technically arrived at having been used as lots an!d quantities or units for distribution in connection with the allotment of field anld Imeardowland is a well-known fact. Frequently, however, the parcels have been measured and createld in another way, i. e. direcltly, as already exiistilng owned plots.

In this account we Ihave wished to reserve the word "teg", i. e. parcel, for the moire regular strips oif field anld Imeadow produced by organized partitioning. We refer to ffie irregular ground patternls instead of tilled fields, plots, blocks olr combinations of these terms.

Cleft !field-block!s are often to be observed on the maps olf Jamtland and Harjedalen; and it is evident bhat they have frequently beell cut right across in co!nnection with the or- dinary cleavages olf assessed fanns. This resulted in sltraight or angled boundary lines, in marked colntrast to the old irregular shapes of the fields. When the cleavage was made, either new fences were erected to enclose the rvew Ifield-blocks as special enclosures, or this was not Idone, which latter was often consistent with the abandonment or abseince of the custom of fencing property in the villages in question.

In Jamtland many medium-sized and small villages appear Ito be composed of gr<}ups arising als partnerships; but this is also to be found elsewhere. One is frequently unable to decide whether it has beeln a matter of a twin farm or a fundioningtpartnership.

Farms with the whole of their infield area

66

collected in one place are often found with simple or compound partnerships owning alternate quarter sectors, partly supplemented with rowqformations of irrelgularly shaped £ield- plots and blocks.

In Harjedalen, even where farm-fences of joint-village type have disappeareld or are at all eventis lackiing, one Idistingliishes a pattern of ownership o!f the salme type. Inhis mixed participation was spantaneous, arising largely in connection with cleavages and newly cultivated ground lby successive ,generatiolns or with private ente-rprise, while the new cultivation and the extenlsion of the farmed areas went on uninterraptedly in the usual way. The result was then in many cases these enormous jigsaw-puzzle patterns with small and large and for the Imost part irregular property patterns, irregular lozenge-shapod or acute and obtuse angled clelavage blocks in unregulated mixed participations. Tlhe whole resulted in a compositioin oif primary and secondary mixed groups.

The joint villages in Harjedalen, southern J amtl and land north-wessternmost Dale carlia show that the system of enclosed farms was the primary form at least during the perilod directly accessible to us. Really old maps are unlfortunately lacking in tthe Harjedalen part of the country. Thus one is here unableto Imake any headway on the spot; one is compelled to resort to comparisons. Generally speaking, cBlne then finds a remarkable agreement with the cond;itions prevailing in the old settlelments in western Europe, above all in the Celtic areas. Other parallels are Finnish joint villages and joint villages in other provinces in Swelden, where maps froim as elarly as the mildSdle of the 17th century are available. In this connectiony however, olne comels up against tjhe difficulty of the influence exerted by the central authori- ty. Only under particularly favourablle conldi- tions can cIne with the help of maps get at joint villages dating back as far as thelmiddle of ;the 17th century. This, however, is possible especially in southerrl Dalecarlia and Varm- land, the forest settlements in Vastergotland and Smaland and in Finland. For the rest, an as!similation implyingla concentration of all or only sofme farms in an inside partnership has grown up.

My rnain thesis is thus that the joint villages and other more primitive villages with special

G E O G R ^ F I S K ̂ ^ N N ^ L E R * X L I I I ( 1 9 6 1 ) * 1 -R




enclosures represenk primary forms which may o.nce have had counterparbs also in the plains settle!ments with their villages, upon which a secondary regiulation has bee;n imposed.

Within these, however, one can sometimes deduce from the actual shapes ogf the segments the earlierlexistence olf a joint village without fencing. Not least in Vastergotland has this been the case.

We distinguis-h further tw.o other categories oi: villages with farm enlclosure, YiZ., cont.act villages and river-bank row-villages. The.farrns in. the contact villages are separate, a.nd .they are so close togeRer as t.o be actually coql- tiguous with at least some part, even sf very small, of the homefields. For the rest, irt was. here, as m other enclosed villages, only the territorial neighb,ourhoo,d, with what this implied, that con,s,,,tituted the combining element. Also the outfield area, naturally, was at first cotmmon to all the far,ms.

There is as a rule,n,a,internal partnership in the typical contact village,s; but there are many intermediate forms.

In Finland, to,3 the same grouping oecurred,, vvithout any assimilation betwleen the farms.

A large part loif the region in which this type of settle,ment oc,curs, in row-formation alon,g the banks oftheTorne river,was mapped in the 1640's. The villages here were charac- teriz&d by a spewial system of ownership, with the far,m,s separately enclosed and with all the h-omelfields in almost rectangular homefield enclosures. Each farm !had its own concentrated hornefield area. These were situated in row-fonmation along the bank, evidently to enable the owners to exploit the fishing possibilities directly-i.e. in this case salmonfishing; but at the same time agriculture was also carried on.

No river-bank row-village, however, was a pure type as sketched here; all bore the stamp

r * * * < > ot cormpromls,mg mlxietcl torms. This may probably be taken as aln adequake

clescription of the river-bank row-villages in Tornekdalen in the 1 7th and 1 8th centuries. They retained their structure in the main right up to the legislated partition of the l9th century. The development that can be followed within their £rame shovv;s a transformation from the system of privalte ownershtp w,ithout mixed participation to the growth of co§nmon enclosures and mixed parcels, a development

which was, however, never quiite completed. It seewns as if the river-bank row-village in its genuline form had its hey,day duning the 16th century. To what extent the type had flou- rished earlier it is difficult to tsay.

A large group of terms which have played an importalnt role and which were authorized by the Scandinavian medieval laws, such as g&rd (-farm) anld garde (= field), originally signiified 'fence', and only secondarily an enclosed cultivated or settled area, which shows that such outfield enclosures were as a rule already fenced-in at a very early stage.

We cannot here give a closer analysis of tllis supplementary system of split-up and varied outfield enclosures. Evejn in villages with regulateld partition and tlbe use o£ fallow, however, the infield area was surrounded by an 'archipelago' of outfield enclosures. These were of course added in the course of new cul- tivatio.!n and ocoupation of ground. These outfield enclosures outsi,de the village enclosures were often more freely at the disposal of the peasant than were the areas withinlthe village enclosure, where he was more dependent on his neighbours. The development of the villages in Harjedalen and Jamtland and their appropria- tion of new ground show how the system of outfield enclosures was able to funotion in more modern times, and how by stages these enclasures were incorporated with the vellage enclosures.

In a village by-lawlfor Rofnneby parish from the 18th century we find the lfollowing statute: "Since the infields of this village are divided, each in its rspecial enclosure or so-called'lycka', surrounded by fe;nces, so that no property is nlixed with another's, and every proprietor has his own special enclosure separated from the res.t with his fanm sequestered alnd separate, so that according ars he fences he has. peace in his fields, the general inspection of fences about the fields. . . is .here not so necessary."

Until new invelstigations have been carried out, the ques.tion as tc) thEher in certain cases the villages with tscattered enclosures in the south of Swede.n had the character o£ joint villages tnust be left open. Before ffie joint villages and the contact villages, there did !at all events exist a sort of !free farm group that was afterwards merSd in one or w.as surrounded by a conon infield enclosure.

O.f frequent accurrence in the Iron Age

67 G E O G R A F I S K A A N N A L E R * X L I I i ( 1 9 6 t ) t 1 -2



SIGURD ER]XON

* * N e * e . @ \ ::

* * \ . ' . @ ' . . t

* * . * \

. . . . * \

. * * * * k

* 'E *EAC' *-* X

;S9S'0t

, . I 0 . T a" - - - ':, Alt

.. . . . .

Fig. 5. Jattene village in the parish of Friggeraker, Vastergotland. lllustrative reconstruction of the map of 1644 7. The village comprised by that time 15 farmsteads, all marked with a figure, which is found as well by the house outlines that indicate the farmstead sites as on the arable land of respective farm. The settlement and the cultivation surround the "ta", which constituted a depression in the middle of the village. Explanation of signs: chequered area = arable land; dotted area = meadow, hay-field; ring-marked area = pasture; line with slanting strokes= fence.

6 8 G E O C R A F I S K A A N N A L E R * X L I I I ( 1 8 6 X ) * 1 -Z

rwar.




were enclosed tilled fields, isolated or concentrated in goups of greater or lesser extents sometimes also scattered. On Getland, bland and Ostergotland the enclosures were often connected with a cotnprehensive systelm. It has here sounetimes been possible to distingtiish a rich network of irregular enclosures, long cattle la!nes, pens and fences of considerable length.

Are the more modern systems of enclosure derived frotn tradlitions dating back to pre- historic ;times? This is a central problelm that has long been debated in Denmark France and England; and a rich material with many parallels with the Swedish material has ,been adduced. On tlle one hand it is asserted that the system of mllltiple enclo6ures is of older date .than the common fields and the open- field sys,tetms wi.th whole enclosures that af.ter the Middle Ages were predominant in both northern and western Europe. On the other hand, it has been said that special enclo6ures .are due to a younlger transformatioXn that was started in the 16th century anrd came to be generally accepted in the 18th century.

The probability is that the two systems-special enclosures or the open-field system-survived side by side in western Europe. In certain periods, however, the one or the other became predominant owing to particular trends of *development. According to Marc Bloch, the enclosures were very likely adopted for the purpose of getting manure from the fenced-in cattle or sheep.

As has already been ndicated, fences were extensively used in prehisteric times. All the Scandinavian medieval laws have prescriptions concerning the coqnEn.ulsory erection of fences. These fetnces served not only the putpose of shutting out grazmg cattle or kting them within a certain area,-they also had a legal import which is often mentioned directly with reference to sites, fields and meadows in the infield area and to staked fields in the outfield area.

The oldler Vastgota law i!n the 13th century has many statutes pertaining to fencing e.g. that there must be a fence between site and tilled field. This law, like the East Swedish laws, presupposes the existence of a common village enclosure.

In Isofme .medieval laws there are reguIations to the offect that a peasant finding condlitions

in the village too crowded was entitled to move from the enclo6ure.

Not irlfrequently, however, one finds in the old Vastgota villages open village enclosures with much of the ownership system and pattern of distribution of the joint village,, so that they resemble a joint village or a contact village from which the fences have been removed.

A village coznprLsed some {few assessi farms in the year 1645. On the open enclosed fields in continuous use one here finds the farmsteads ,in a sparse row along one side of the longitudinal field on a ridge. The tilled grouxld was grouped in block-rows adjacent to the sites a clear line of demarcation being dis- cernible. Fonnations of this kind are referred to as ridge-row villages (asradbyar).

Such row-like village groupings may be of ccnnsiderable age. Most famous of them is Stora Karleby in Vastergotland, situated on a hog-back close by a Ifault. In a row along the farm-sites are left soune twenty prehisto-ric sepulchral mounldLs, some of them from the Stone Age. Grouping of this kind have also existed in other provinces, but normally without fences between the owners.

The functions of the fe;nce enclosing the entire village were several. It was necessary to keep the cattle away from the infield area while the crops were growing. This called for a certain order and solidarity. Even the medieval laws laid down the date when the village fence must be in order and the gates closeds and the date when this 'closed' period should terminate iln the auturnn. When the growirlg period came to an end, and sometimes also before the spring sowing, the infield area was opened for the cattle, and they were then allowed to graze here without regard for what was private property. This served also to feNi- lize the fields with the dung the animals left behind them. For the ilndivi,dual this implied a profit, and at the same time a saving of labour and fencing materials. The agricultural activi- ties were carried on separately by each peasant, without any other economic tie with the village group than the right to undivided natural resources. However a certain degree of synchronization was necessary.

From one point of view one might describe such a village cooperative or team as an 'enclosure' society, or as it is sometimes referred

69 G E O G R A F I S K A A F1 F1 A L E R * X L I I I ( 1 § 6 1 ) * 1-2



SIGURD ERIXON

AeW^0

0 -'. '.' *' '* t * ' *,* t *- @' .S. >- "-': e,.-,, W , .---e. * . .

<',-W ' .'t, - % *-'t' *-;X'-_ \.', B @,; .,:. -

\ ,*'- /

ow. 4 ,. . .-6-- :/

X * '.' ' - --/

Fig. 6. Paveras village in the parish of Marka, Vastergotland. Illusgtrativ reconstruction of the map of 1645. The village comprised 5 farmsteads, marked I-5. These figures are to be found firstly by the house outlinesg that indicate the farmstead sites and secondly on the arable land of respective farm. Explanation of signs: chequered area= arable land; dotted area = meadow, hay-field; line with slanting strokes = fence.

to in medieval law, a 'varnalag' (= defence team).

To a certain extelnt every village is a coali- tion or group-formation of peasant families. These succ.essively createld the village in colm- petition with one another while trying to .make a living frolm tilling the Isoil and from ex- ploiting.the ;natural resources and possibilities of the respe.c.tive areas. Thezfamilies originally formed groups, but organized cooperation between theJn is a secolndary cultural achieve- ment. This is illustrated by the formation oif a so-called "inner colmmunity". It has usually been aslsumed that developments followed a trend practically the reverse of this, but this seems rather implausible. Yet o;ne of the main problelms is to what extent the system of individually enclosed farms is a continuation of village grouping and Idivision lof the Iron Age or not. Here archceology, in cooperation with international comparative village and agrarian research, has to Igive the an.swer.

To begin with, the psrtnership Implied only that the neighbours existed together and agreed

upo'n a certain cooperation and disposition of the ground. The cultivationlof virgin soil and the acquisition olf new ground were regulated by the rules laid Ido-wm in the medieval laws.

According to Uppland law!it was incumbent upon a peasant who started to cultivate a new piece of ground to "lamna a-visning" of (i.e. actually point out) equivalent po6sibilities of cultivation to the other partKwners in the village team. A neighbour who failed to take the chance t,hus ifered him zmust then be content with what he had. If he availed hilm- self af hits rL«t, he might take his lot beside that of t-he first man or else choo6e another, as might be most sllitable. The proportion be- tveen the total estate of the participatlars might not be upset. The balance betwee,n them shoiuld be maintained. This appears to have been the basic principle also in Vastergotland.

A succelssive alloltment olf ground in the cultivated area accorading to this prianciple may be designated as successive, unsystelmatic but balanced field partition.

In the secti,on of the older Vastgota law

70 G E O G R A F I S K A A N N A L E R ' X L I I I 11 9 6 ) * 1"g



SWEDISH VILLAGES WlTHOUI SYSTEMATIC RIRGULATION

pertaining to land<}wning and the villages, however, we find an account of the procedure to be adopted when a peasant danded xm- pensation through partiticyn for an enclosure cultivated by another. "As sxn as a piece of ground is enclosed lfor cultivation", runs the paragraph, 'any peasant has the right to de- mand parcellation ifor all those ownirLg ground irl the village.5'

It also emerges from this law that a kind of measurement was to be Imade out on the newly acquired ground? but how is not known in Vas- tergotland. Sometimes lots might be drawn for the distribution. The participants might also come to an agreement in a simpler and more direct way. In Vastergotland it was incumbent upon each peasant to keep an account of his field and its position and size. If land was to be sold or transferred, it was required that the grounld sholuld be checked in these two re- speclts through a so-called circuit or procession aIolund the field in question.This direct evalua- tion in the terrairl is a more primitive and an- cient methad than the measuring procedure used in eastern Sweden.

It is slolmetilmes mentionekd that fields or meadows or both were useld jointly, which appears to have takeln place either in the direct sense olf the word, wherl the crop would be divided afterwards or thr¢h annual ex- change of fields or alternate use of two fields taken Xtogether or lelse rotatiorl in the case of more than two fields. Both methods were used by farms where temporary cleavage partnerships obtairled as a result of the divisiorl of a ulairl farm. Especially in the eId archives does one find farms with such incomplete division.

The Imeadows were often h!arvested iln this way. For a long time there survivocl in certain places the custom of measuring out the mea- dowland or plolt of every ifarm whew these had not, as was comJnor}ly the case, bwn tmarke!d out with poles, but so indistinctly that the botlndary between the plots had to be 'tramped' clear or, as we find it expressed even in some medieval laws, 'waded' (:f'vadas") clear.

In Vastergotland there are a number of lril- lages with a structure of owXnership and a distribution of settlement thatlmay imply tram- formed free farm groups or joi,nt villages.

In contradisti-nctioin to the villages with lone nzain enclosure we have the split-up villages,

especially m southern Dalecarlia and Smaland and certain pans of Vastergotland. This applies in part also to HalsiXngland. The course of development is here rather different: a patching tcsgether and combining of the split-up village enclosures.

It is sometimes possible to make certain ob- servatio¢Ils on the way in mrhich ed pzicipa- t,on has been dleveloped in the direction of greater solidarity between the farms and the groups ,f farms in a village. Here and there zones with mixed participation have acted as mortar betweerl the pieces of land, as well as other examples of ombination. Two groups of farms ,may, .for insltance, be combined through mixed particilpation in a particularly small regio.n. This has then continuerl in different for.ms in.the direction of greater solidarity and more regular mixed participatio,n.

Orl a broader vie;w one sees a sort of coupling olf neighbo.ur villages either tllroiugh such colnnecting mixed participatioql regions of one kinDd or another outside the hoimefield area, or throu,gh arrangernents for joint cattle- rearing bletweerl two lor more villages, which latter have been an important factor in fiorcing this gdevelopment.

In Halland one can observe- about 1700 A.D.-special formations, a combination of *manor-house and a group of villages ("sateri- larg") evidently shaped under a Ifeuilal regime.

Irl Vastergotland the settlernelnt was in the middle osf the 17th xntury S a rule aon- centrated in quite a differen,t way fronn that *found in Jamtlan/d-Harjedalen, and it presented particular 1Ocally developed patterns. One does ne.vertheless find, here too, villages that at this period had a rather split-up or scattered settlement. I8he commonest arra,ngement in Vastergotland has been .a settlement on the outskirts distributesd almong village site-areas or fanmstead areas. IEe arillage site areas present for ;the most part the appearance of bay-shaped inserts from the outfielsd area. lDhis has perhaps been thelmost characteristic pat- *tern, especially if the village site-area has also been combined with a special "ta" (callectiIlg and waterillg place for cattle). iveral villages with relatively scat.tered settlement frequently had at least some local indicaton of a village site-area, while the rest {>f the sites were scattered.

In Vastgbta law it was forbidden for a

71 G E O G R A F I S K A A N N A L E R * X L I I I (1 9 6 1 ) * 1 a2



SIGURD ERIXON

peasant to have his site on the enclosed tilled fields of the village. If this prohibition was not observeds the practice in olden times seems to have been that the buildings in question should be burned down.

Some kind of directive had to be usezl in other parts of the county to the saJne dh In certaitn places we finxl the setlement sparsely scattered around e edges of the village enclosure (especially in western Smaland and in Norrbotten).

There were also villages with very extensive village sites which were largely talQen up by fenced plabs vegetable gardens enclosed pastures and enclosures of other kinds Here, too, different kilnds o£ settlement were found together. One often finds that the church was located on the village site-area A part was utilized for shacks, solidiers' nttages and artisans' huts.

On the village site-areas one not infrequently fiIlds the settlement concentrated in irreg,ular agglomerations or in rows or iln scattered formations.

The ('ta" was usually a depression or a valley within reach lof the place where the cattle were aJbd with watering possibilities for the latter. Bis was in fact the maln ffuncti of the more or less low-lying 4;ta'. It was also the place where the smaller livestsk were sometimes kept in the warm season.

In many cases the village site-area appears as a reserve for the settlement, and it cannot be denied that it onstituted common pund of a special nature. In eastern Sweden, too, it was a kird of reserve.

In certain circumstanxs it is found that the sites on the Vastgota village site-areas have sonetimes beentfcyund grouped iln a circular formation, something which is otherwise almost uown in Sweden. This may best be colmpared with the arrangement in the round villages in Central Europe.

One is forced to reckcyn with a concentra- tio,n of ithe settlement according to a pvm pattern, many of the buildings being shifted closer to the centre. The Danis!h villag show certain counteiparts to the Vastgota ;'ta'.

Also in Skane there occurred a concentration of settlement to a central open place with the tilled area around this, but directly connected with the pasturelantd in about the same way as in Yastergotland. This is a combination

of village site-area and "ta", though not cor- responding, as regards details, with the Vast- gota xnditions.

As early as the Middle Ages the group of terms here in question had acquired a legally normative character in East Swedish laws. In the Vastfnauland law S',ta" had the meaning of a road around the regularly laid out village site-area i. e. an encircling road. The phrase is here C'innan eller utan ta ok ta,mta raf' (inside or outside of road and site-stakes). In both Uppland law and Dala law a village is said to be "tabundin" i e. ';gatubu,nde¢l' (btound by a street), as the expression runs irz Uppland law and the medieval lavs governing estate. What was here referred to was. a village whcese sites were fixed within an encircling road cer along a road or street running along: the village front.

Also in central and western Europe one finds a countexpart of the cotmbination of village- or site-ground and .gathering and watering place for thle cattle. The commonest de- signation for this is in Germany Anger, in England 'the green'.

The word "tomt'$, or in the south-west of Sweden "to.ft", corresponds to 1) the house- sites and 2) smaller plots used for velgetablese cereals or hay. These plats must at least to begin wi* have been regarded as private property, and .they Ishould not be confused with the cotnmon tilled infields.

In the East Swedish area with solar parf- tion such grass plots have often been used to fill out and supplement a farqn to give it its right proportions in relation to the other farms. They have everywhere been kept separate from *the fields and meadows entering in the mixed paticipation area. This placing in the vicinity of the homestead and the barn has often led tc} a better manunng than was Zherwise ob- tained.

A closer investi-gation reveals, moreoverR that the tilled fields of a farm tended to collect .next to or round about the farmstead site. This tenidency of.ten led to a grouping in pro- nounced homefield areas sometimes reminis- cent of 'tomttakter' that had lost their enclosures, or to a more indafinitely delimited irregular conglomeration in the home-zone or stakedout series of parcels. That these constitute reminiscences froun older stages with enclosed farmsteads and homefield enclesures ap-

72 G E O G R A F I S K A A N N A L E R * X L I 11 (1 9 6 1 ) * 1 -R



SWEDISH VILLAGB WQUT SYSEMAEC REGULAEQN

pears probable. Also in ,adjacent mixed participation groups one often distinguishes one or another field-blxk or some parcel, fixeld to a certain contact with the home-site or the homefield area. It would seem as if the fieldowners have found it difficult to detach their parcels from the home envirc)nment.

In assewing the grouping of ownersh.ip in the Vastgota village7s one -must ,always reckon with the existence cyf the previous fixatioIl of ownership groups and parcels in the home milieus here descriid.

In the Vastgota villages there occurred an aggleWmeration olf larger blocks and fields beside the respective sites. Only af,ter a rather strict mixing of parcels with more regular forms and se4uences did this grouping ,begin to be replaced by others.

On the elder maps one can in Vastergotland follow every cmceivable stage iln this libera- tion, in which the contact between parcel and site was nevertheless never quite obliterated as it was wherever the radical solar partitioln had been introduced. That the survXiving connection laetween site and parcel has influenced the groluping a;nd the sequence of the parcels is evident.

Also where it is a matter of property patterns one ,notes a contrast between different parts of the village enclosures. Certain parcels and series of parcels are more regular than others. One very often observes that this regularity increases with ,the distance frorn the sites in questiofn. This implies a zoning iof fcrms. One also notd that the regularity often increases in the measure in which the imixin,g of parcels becoimes more gefneral.

That this tightening up of the regulations arsd this more gen,eral participation in a local partnership is in most cases connectled with the fact that the bundles of parcels have been added at a later stage than the tilled fields in the site-zones is eviqdent.

Another imp;ortant problem in this conn,ec- tion is the growth of unsystelmatic parcellation in, espec,ially, Vastergotland and Aits continuation in partial parcel-mixtures with regulation. The same problem has been discussed as regards Norrboittenl Halsingland, soluthern Dale- carlia and Smaland. In all of these cases the genuiX>e traditions surviving up to our times in Harjedalen and Jarn,tland constitute important material for comparison.

We have here to reckon with parcellation of a partial nature, but also with coqnpros of all kinds. In sharpest contr,ast to all this is the Eas,t Swedish solar p,fflition with its de- maXn,d for systematic regulatiaxl, defi,nite se- quences,, consistent prop,ortions, in the distribution of ownership and in the Inixed part,ici- pation. Here, as regards the homefield areas and the settletment grouping, the result was almost tabula rasa. These bureaucratic nonns, already exist in the medieval laws, but they were obeyed only where the conditions were siitable and above all in the central, more strictly supervised, East Swedish provinces.

The division anld fencing-in of the infield area was to a large extent determined by the methods of agriculture. When a part of this area was left Ito lie fallow, fencing was necessary to keep the cattle off the fields in crop.

Three main systems of cultivation must be considered, of which however, the simplest, "ensade", implying the continuous cultivatqon of a field, is distinguished from the other two in being without regular fallow.

The word {';trade" (fallow) is cognate th the verb "trada" (= to tramp). While it was lyilng fallow the ground was used for pasture so that it was 'trampeds and fertilized by the dung left by ffie cattle.

For certain purposes a sort of ambulatory fenced plo¢ was occasionally used on fallow fields. Sometimses the fence surround;ing m exhausted enclosure was torn down and another more suitable plot fenced in, while the first plot was reunited with the village common.

'Tra(d)e" is a word that in Norwegian dialects has a very vague meaning. It may signify simply fallow field, dunged enclasure or manure pen, and in certaijn cases it correspands directly to what in Harjedalen and souther¢ Jamtland, and also in many places irl Norway, Elas been called 'stra(d)".

One finds Ithat the one-field region extended like a diagonal belt covering a large part of inner and south-western Gotaland. The northern boundary ran [from ,the Kristianopel tract in eastern BleXinge to the north-west through Smaland past the tip of Lake Vattern, to con- tinue in the vicinity of the b{>undary be!tween the Skaraborg and Alvsborg admitnistrative districts and along the iboundary between Dals- land and Bohuslan. The southern boundary of

73 CEOCRAFISKA ANNALER * XLIII (1 96t) 1-2



SIGURD ERlXON

the e-Eleld system followed rather closely the boundary itween the adiminustragtive districts of Malmohus and Kristianstad. AEvart froan this, the one-field system is found to have existed .as an isolated outskir;t phenomenon, as for example in certain forest settlements in northern and western VarmlaIld. It zcurred, finallys also in Ns}rth Swedens t:hough here for t:he most part in patches or scattered and to a certain extent in spec;ial Iforms. The maitn

areas o£ distribubion of the threeifield systein are south-western Skane, i.e. the district of WI.almohus, .the lmain part of Kallmar district, and north-easter.n Vastergotland.

A two-field system was characteris.tic £olr east Sweden in an extensive zone fr.orn and qn- cluding Ostergotland and the Tjust dis.trict in the n.orth-eas.tern! part of Smalan.d an,d con- *tnuin.g thereafter to southern Dalecarlia and certaifn lar.ge areas In eastern Norrland, above all on Imore even ground sustable .for agrioul- ture. Between Xche twcFfield arela and the one- field zone iln soulth-western Gotaland one finds the three-field system intercalated as an in part wedge-shaped insert wilh its main direction following the east coast of the Kalmar county of Smaland. It is not yet possible to say exactly whben and through what circumstances the coastal settlements in the Kalmar county received and adoptedlthis liImovation, to pro- pagate it, subsequently, further to the north- west.

The absence of regular fallow undoubtedly constituted a ptive feature of the system of continuous cultivation. The use oFf the village infield enclosure must not, however, be identi- fied with this. It can also be a post-factum measure af rationalization on the pattern of the twbfield system and the use of threofield fallow.

A phenomeno¢l that is more difficult to classify is the multiple-field system which -evidently from the Middle Ages-occurred in western Sweden and in a still more pronoulloed form in Varwnlanld. This systein is here pre- sumably a result of a continuing develapment from learlier more irregular conditioCns. The sa.me also applies to Norway.

When a-field had been exhausted or had berme overgrown with weeds it was in older times simply abandoned and left to be grassed over. An abandon;edifield was iin Sweden and Norway referred to as an ;'akra". "Linda" implies something d;Iferent, it is a grassed- over field -that has been taken as a hayfield aind then, alfter an in.*terv;al of time, is tilled agaill. The period otf rest was here conside- rably longer than in the case o£ fallow; nor was it so regular. This praotice was sometimes carried oal in a primitive way without any or,der, anld solmekimes wi.th more regularity. Certain correspanding practices, at least in unregulated forms, are ktnowln from both eastern and western Europe.

74 GEOGR^FISKA ANNALER * XLIII {t 96t) * t*Z



morphogenesis of the agrarian cultural landscape: papers of the vadstena symposium at the xixth...

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